OPINION

Page 5
Vol. XCV, No. 22-S
95 Years of Editorial Freedom
Managed and Edited by Students at
The University of Michigan
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the
Daily Editorial Board
Take uthe slack
AS A STATE Senate and House conference committee
sits down to iron out their differences on a higher
education budget this week, they will have to ask them-
selves whether the state should use its resources to help
keep tuition down or use it for financial aid to help needy
students.
The Senate wants to allocate $6 million to the state
universities and colleges to help keep tuition down. At the
same time, the Senate would also spend $6 million less on
state financial aid programs. The idea being that you
would help more students.
Conversely, the House wants to increase state financial
aid by $6 million while lowering the amount located to
colleges and universities.
But in light of the financial aid cuts proposed by
President Reagan and the plan to increase aid by the in-
flation rate advocated by Congress, it is no time for the
state to back down in its support of needy students.
While all students at the University would save a couple
of hundred dollars a term, it is as state budget director Bob
Naftaly says, "a betrayal of the public to deny access to
Michigan's high-quality educational institutions to lower
and middle-income families."
All students will undoubtedly share more of a financial
burden because of the state legislature's lackluster per-
formance with the budget. But such a burden must be
placed according to need. Not by across the board tuition
breaks.
If the University does not get an increase in funding,
administrators may decide to cut back on educational
programs that will hurt the quality of the institution. But in
a twist of the catch phrase being used by University
President Harold Shapiro, "non access to a high quality
institution is a hoax on society."
S1a0 
a- .

Wednesday, June 19, 1985

The Michigan Daily

Our friend the Coke machine

By Kery Murakami
Call it a soda machine or call it a
pop machine, the little red and white
fella standing day after day, through
treacherous night shifts and boring
day shifts, through heated editorial
board meetings and bloody editorial
elections, is our friend.
I've often wondered what would
happen if our little friend were not
around, dispensing 10 ounce Cokes
and Sprites for 30 cents. I've often
wondered what would happen if it
died.
SOMETIMES, and I shudder even
now to think of it, our friend has given
us a glimpse of would it would be like.
A reporter, parched from a par-
ticularly draining day of
muckracking, staggers to our foun-
tain, deposits a quarter and a nickel
and in horror, hears the clinking of
the coins hitting the coin return slot.
In desperate hope, years of neglected
bed time prayers running through his
mind, he tries again only to hear the
agonizing clink of the coins running
through the sick Coke machine.
A scream of torture brings workers
from the business office, and the
highest ranking editor in the
newsroomyrunning to themachine,
followed by a crowd of newspeople
with worried looks on their faces.
Journalism is a treacherous
business, many of our peers in the
trenches and pits of war-torn coun-
tries. But nothing is worse than the
feeling you get, standing and wat-
ching the desperate jigglings to fix
the machine, your throat turning dry,
as dry as a left over pizza sitting in
the newsroom untouched for several
nights.
BUT OUR FRIEND always boun-
ces back. The Coke machine
paramedic coming in his black and
red surgical outfit, pulling our friend
out of the jaws of death, time after
time after time.
Our friend bounces back even after
the abuses of its friends. Yes, we
forget how much we love it
sometimes. Like all lovers after a
while, we do tend to take our pal for
granted. We've kicked it. We've cur-
sed it. We've even stolen sodas from it
on occasion. And we're sorry.
More than any editor, our Coke
machine keeps this paper going.
Night after night the same scene is
BLOOM COUNTY

The Daily Coke machine patiently waits for a staffer to 'pause and refresh.'

repeated. It's 10:00 p.
witching hour, is com
hot and muggy in thi
newsrooms are supp
wire machines are t
seconds. And you sit
manual typewriter,y
as they try to read t
your notebook, your
rhetoric spilled out by
your eyelids droppin
no way the story will
BUT THEN you mi
the pilgrimage to th
You pull out thirty
hundredth of your m
you push the Coke bu
exhilaratingly noisy
breakable black gla
feine comes out - a
newborn baby. ,
With a swig, you
typewriter, a new p
expose the crime a
this world.
Through the early
noon editorial meetin
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m. Deadline, the ters just out of bed and fighting the
ning up fast. It's haze of sleep meet to determine this
s newsroom, like paper's editorial policy, our caffeine
osed to be. The dispenser comes through again.
icking away the As a bulletin board for out semi-
in front of your nightly Daily parties, our Coke
your eyes glazed machine never fails us.
he scribblings in And most of all, it is a moral base
mind dulled by for our newspaper. Magically, all the
y politicians, and greed and materialism injected in
g down. There's you by the outside world sud-
be ready. denly disappears when you pass the
iake the walk - Coke machine and enter the
e Coke machine. newsroom. We are a socialistic
cents, one one society in the pure sense. No personal
onthly paycheck, possessions here. All change, every
tton, and with an nickel, dime and quarter that can be
crash, the un- used for our Coke machine becomes
ss bottle of caf- communal property as soon as you
as beautiful as a enter those doors. Many friendships
have been born with the phrase, "Can
're back at the I borrow 30 cents?"
person, ready to Yes, Coke machine, this article is
nd corruption in for you. We love you friend, our com-
panion, our savior.
Saturday after-
ngs, where repor- Murakami is a Daily reporter.
by B rke Breathed
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